Epiode 186 – “Enemy of the World” – Part 01

And we begin my favorite of the Troughton stories. Lost for decades, and recovered only back in 2013, we have “Enemy of the World”!

Because with a name like Salamander, he’s probably up to no good.

We begin with our heroes arriving in a future version of Australia. They’re at the beach, and the Doctor promptly runs off to the ocean. As one does. Then he spots some sort of hovercraft off in the distance. The men at said hovercraft observe him through binoculars and seem to recognize him.

Then the Doctor strips down to his underwear and goes to frolic in the water while Jamie laughs and Victoria worries. I’m mostly just happy we aren’t treated to any fan-service shots of him in wet undies.

Next thing you know, the Doctor and friends are on the run from the hovercraft, with the men on board it firing away. This then culminates in a rather exciting foot chase, with the bad guys chasing our heroes while an exciting score plays in the background! Then a helicopter arrives to rescue them, and that’s that.

A hovercraft and helicopter just in the first few minutes. Someone got themselves a big budget for this story!

As they fly, the Doctor notices a license indicating that the helicopter is fine to operate until the end of 2018. So that gives us a basic idea of when this story takes place, ie: somewhere between 1968 and 2018 (though probably closer to the later).

The woman who pilots the TARDIS crew to safety is named Astrid, and as she speaks her name, I couldn’t help but notice that Jamie and Victoria are basically wearing the same skirt. Amusing.

Astrid has a plan that could involve the Doctor getting killed. He’s less than enthusiastic about this. Turns out the Doctor is the spitting image of this chap called Salamander who has designs on taking over the world. Knowing that, the plan becomes fairly obvious.

Not long after we get the first glimpse of Salamander, and I must say, Troughton does a very good job of playing a very different character from the one he normally plays. Much better than Hartnell did, playing a different character in “The Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve”, though it helps that he has lots more time on the screen.

Of course pretty quickly the Doctor is roped into impersonating Salamander. He tries to resist, but then Salamander’s security chief shows up, and things are about to get interesting…